Project 2025
This is another crossover post revamped for the new site. There will be some new information.
They said they wouldn’t do it. Trump put both his arms out and shoved until there was significant distance between him and Project 2025. He said he didn’t know who wrote it, even though those men were once part of his circle. He endorsed the foundation and the plans for his administration in 2022. As I go back and read through what I initially put out on Project 2025, my blood goes just a little bit cold.
If you aren’t aware, Project 2025 is one in a series of proposals of policy laid out by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that operates out of D.C. founded in 1973. Ideally, a think tank is supposed to be a group of experts on social policy, political strategy, economics, military, culture, etc. They publish research in studies or articles and sometimes push legislation based on them. Legislation are laws, essentially. Think tanks as institutions date back to the 16th century or further with a rise in right -wing and fascist tanks in the US post 1945.
Most of them are not tied to government, but some are funded by them (though not always the government of their home country). Modern think tanks are ideologically focused (centered on one set of beliefs or principles) and often charge for their research. The Heritage Foundation puts out their findings for free, a tactic which has led to them being one of the most publicly cited. They have influence in our government dating back to Reagan. He passed out the first iteration of Project 2025, titled A Mandate for Leadership, at his first official cabinet meeting. The plan included a push of government in a more conservative direction by raising the federal defense budget and abandoning affirmative action initiatives. Affirmative action is a series of positive steps to end discrimination and prevent its reoccurrence. By the end of Reagan’s first year around sixty percent of the proposals were in phases of initiation or implemented.
There have been seven mandates since then, with Project 2025 as the ninth. Published in 2023 it is their boldest claim to power. At this point in my original article I outlined a few of the more concerning points of attack. At this point in this article I’m disturbed to find much of it has been in the news this past week, and I am going to make the switch to speaking about it in present tense.
The expectation is to consolidate all power to the President of the United States (right now I’m unclear what role Musk plays in this, whether it’s traitor savant or shadow President). Consolidation of power has given Trump and the DOGE department the authority to replace cabinet workers and most federal civil workers (non -elected government employees) with people loyal to him who will uphold the conservative values they wish to instill into the blood of this country. Or, at least, tap into the vein that’s been there since the dawn of Puritans on this shore. Congress is ineffectively attempting to reject his cabinet proposals as they keep tweeting online about what he’s up to, but not what they plan to do about it.
The Trump regime has offered federal workers a severance package: If they resign now they’ll be paid through September. Federal workers unions are fighting back while federal workers congregate in online spaces, encouraging each other to “hold the line” and not give up lifelong careers and health benefits for money they aren’t even sure is coming, or legal. The American Federation of Government Employees has told workers outright that the offer contains no guarantees, but rumors of employees being forced from their positions after they decline are circulating.
Changes like these aim to take control of bodies like the FBI and the CIA. They want to dismantle the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Education, and the National Institute of Health. They’ve paused most research grants, including those geared towards curing cancer and Alzheimer’s. Websites online are beginning a period of censorship where climate change goes unmentioned and fossil fuels are praised. RFK Jr., the pick to be the head of the NIH, is an anti -vaxxer who will do far more harm than good and supports the rollout of these firings and strangling of research.
Trump signed a flurry of executive orders this week that were, frankly, hard to keep up with. An executive order is a mandate to the executive branch of the government, our law enforcers, and holds the power of law. It’s not an often used power. Biden signed 162 during his singular term. 67 of them were revoked on Trumps Inauguration Day. The “check and balance” comes in through the judicial branch who can overturn such orders if they lack foundation in our constitution or Congress. Unfortunately, if you remember, Trump stacked the Supreme Court with loyalists at the end of his first term in 2019.
The orders attacked many social programs like Medicare and Medicaid. They re-wrote the definition of male and female and declared that the United States only recognizes these two genders on a biological and ‘factual’ level. The underlying implication in their wording also attempts to discredit abortion on a national scale, implying that gender happens at conception. People are having a laugh at this online, since it technically also changes the standard to suggest that we are who we are at conception, even though every fetus begins female.
They will seek to make abortion not covered under healthcare, something that’s already happening in individual states like Florida and Texas. There are laws in this country now that criminalize abortion and everyone who contributes to it, such as doctors, transportation, and family members. They will restrict access to contraceptives and abortion pills and they will criminalize sending them in the mail and possession. This will leave women with no choice but to keep any baby, including that of a rapist, or take extreme home measures like poison the way women used to before the law was changed to protect them. They will abandon single mothers for not being a part of a family unit, encouraging women to stay with abusive partners to benefit the child.
We are seeing a nationwide push to reframe education and add Christian teachings to public schools. They are cutting school lunch programs that feed hungry children for free. Many parents switched to homeschool in the wake of COVID and the rise of school shootings; many more will go that route because their child is no longer being safely taught to be autonomous, but rather indoctrinated by a set of guiding principles that remind me genuinely of reading about the Hitler Youth, a Nazi party youth group that aimed to raise kids into the regime.
They are going after all protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. We have lost the Equal Opportunity Employment act and DEI programs. Online is flooded with big companies leaking mandates they’ve received that no longer allow pronouns in their e-mail signatures, and more nefarious policies like firing all DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) hires. We’re seeing a mix of reactions to this, with some universities raising the age to receive gender affirming care while Costco and Meijer say they wont comply. Time, regulation, and enforcement will tell how far this is going to go. Remember we’re only in the first two weeks. Jesus fucking Christ.
I’m not great with financials so excuse this portion, but to my understanding they aim to abolish the income tax and raise the sales tax. Project 2025 cites a wish to dismantle the Federal Reserve and back dollars in gold (the dollar is not currently backed by physical asset). Trump is publicly deliberating whether or not to fire 80,000 IRS workers or send them with the marines to “defend our southern border”.
Immigrants are being targeted en masse. ICE has made over five thousand arrests this week. Many of them did not have criminal records. Greyhound buses have banned ICE checks and teachers are talking about how best to defend their students after ICE showed up at an elementary school. The media talks about how good this is, how we’re removing all of the illegals, but these are human beings who came to have families. Who came for better conditions in their life, something many Americans may soon be in the world seeking themselves. They’ll be surprised to find just how strict and unforgiving “border jumping” is, especially as the international stage condemns us.
The news this week grew especially grim with the announcement that Trump aims to build a camp that can house up to 30,000 migrants. Anyone who knows anything about World War II felt that announcement like a brick to the stomach. A concentration camp at its simplest is a place to hold a large number of people, historically political prisoners and minorities. The conditions are awful and the area is usually small. The people held in the camps may be forced to do labor or wait in some purgatory between life and death while a man who was voted into office decides their fate. Hitler started putting people in camps long before Dachau (widely regarded as the first), so the announcement of a camp so early doesn’t surprise me. I am enraged that so many of my fellow countrymen believe the lies they’re told about people who are, at the end of the day, just people who love and feel the same way anyone else does. We don’t get to take away their right to a full and happy life because their skin is a different shade than ours.
Climate protections are another thing facing extinction this week. We’ve pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement, an international treaty that called for the mitigation of harmful climate reduction practices (ie, nations making the switch to electric vehicles), and the adaptation of countries to survive what we can’t reverse. The fires on the coast and the uptick in hurricanes and tornadoes should be enough to convince you, but heat and weather are changing globally and many areas are predicted to become unlivable in the next five years. Arizona is on that list. FEMA and other disaster relief have had their funding cut.
We’ve pulled out of the World Health Organization at the same time as a federal mandate that silences the CDC and the FDA. With the ramping up of Bird Flu and the rampant COVID, we are not going to find information or help from federal officials. It is time to turn to our communities and ask what we need. Masks? Air purifiers in schools? What kind of food are we going to have to source ourselves? Can we make a city garden? Reach out to your local groups and ask how you can help in your corner.
Fascism affects all of us. It will not only harm those you dislike, but come for your friends and neighbors and eventually you. It is up to us to fight it. Radical action doesn’t have to be big, it just has to be deliberate. You can make room for resistance even if there are certain things you must do to protect yourself. You don’t have to focus on everything all at once. They’re counting on you feeling overwhelmed and disconnected. They’re counting on you to turn off the TV and do nothing. I’m counting on you to turn off the TV and do something. Their racism is on display. Their policies are sharpened to disproportionately affect marginalized communities and unravel human progress, but we can make the shields to hide us as we figure out how to stop them. We protect us.
Thank you so much for reading. As always, feel free to engage and reach out. Progress doesn’t happen in a vacuum or arrive on a white horse. We make it through sweat and we endure and we live anyway. Live anyway.
AF